An atheist, he has filed complaints and lawsuits for 30-plus years accusing government officials of unconstitutionally endorsing Christianity both here and in his native California.

But for a brief time last month, he switched teams.

A church in East Texas showered him with kindness and Greene, 63, declared faith in Jesus Christ. Then he thought better of it.

He's back to his old self and sued Mayor Julián Castro on Monday for his plans to participate in the National Day of Prayer event on City Hall steps today.

“I got all caught up in the excitement,” Greene, a retired cab driver, said of his brief conversion. “It's easy to do when you get ostracized and treated like garbage. When you're an atheist, you're public enemy No. 1.”

Since moving to San Antonio in 2005, Greene has tried to dismantle the Day of Prayer tradition of the mayor reading a proclamation to honor prayer's role in the nation's and city's history.

Most Popular

The lawsuit argues that because evangelical Christians organize the event, it is sectarian and therefore unconstitutional for a mayor to engage in.

“We respect people of faith and those who choose not to believe,” Castro said through a spokesman.

Greene's previous suits here were dismissed, but he had some success in California, getting non-Christians added to a city council's prayer guest list and shutting down a Nativity display on public land.

“Someone called me up once and asked, ‘Why are you destroying Christmas?'” he said of the Nativity battle. “I told him, ‘I don't give a damn about you celebrating Christmas. Just don't do it with my money.'” They said, ‘It's a 40-year tradition. You're doing it because you're an atheist.' I said, no. If I was a Christian, I'd still do it. The issue is unconstitutional funding.”

With his wife Karen, a fellow atheist, Greene lives in a one-bedroom apartment on the Northwest Side. It has little furniture: a bed, a couple of chairs and a desk for his computer where he researches and prepares lawsuits, typically filing for a waiver of fees and representing himself.

He grew up in a large Catholic family in Los Angeles and even eyed the priesthood as a teen. But he questioned the Bible, religious structures and social mores.

Greene said he and his family are now “in two completely different worlds,” and his sister confirmed the estrangement, declining further comment. A brother wouldn't comment at all.

Movies taught him morals, Greene said, especially the line in “From Here to Eternity,” the 1953 classic: “(If) a man don't go his own way, he's nothing.”

“It's been my moral code my entire life,” he said. “I told people in my cab, if you do things because your friends expect it, you're an idiot,” he said.

After eight years in the Air Force, he drove cabs and trucks in California, North Carolina and New York City.

One of his lawsuits after moving to San Antonio was against Suzanne Dollar, a National Day of Prayer coordinator.

“We have nothing but love and compassion for him,” Dollar said. “Our response would be to pray for him. ... We have the freedom to worship. The battle is the Lord's. It's not one for me to fight.”

Last year, Greene set his sights on Henderson County and its courthouse Nativity display but dropped the effort after discovering he had a detached retina. He retired from cab driving in March.

“We will be forever grateful to them,” he said. “It brought us out of a hole.”

Donations are still arriving, church leaders said. A woman named Jessica Crye came up with the idea, and in talks with her Greene began to warm up to the Christian faith. He enrolled in two online Bible courses. He considered moving to Athens and began to email and talk to the pastor, Erick Graham.

Greene told Christian media he had converted, and the news spread. Graham said he was welcoming but skeptical, and Greene questioned himself, too. A few days of reading Genesis and he returned to atheism, he said.

“The more I read the Bible, the more I realized, this is such a crock,” he said.

Critics questioned whether it had all been a publicity stunt. Greene calls it a temporary lapse. He had also been angry at the pastor for praying for Greene's wife, whose atheism had not wavered, at a church service.

He and Graham don't correspond like they used to.

“He is a very complex character,” Graham said. “I've struggled with exactly how to deal with him. It was work. But I believe it was God-ordained. People nationwide saw how Christians ought to react to these situations.”